He watched her watching the others, and was the only one to notice the flash of triumph and relief in her eyes when Lorn spoke.

'Oponn is not the first god seeking to manipulate the Malazan Empire,' the Adjunct said. 'Others have failed, come away bloodied. It's unfortunate the lesson was lost on Oponn – and on Shadowthrone, for that matter.' She sighed deeply. 'Tattersail, whatever your differences with the High Mage, it is necessary, no, vital, that you work together in seeking to discover the details of Oponn's intervention. In the meantime, High Fist Dujek will continue preparing his legion to march, as well as solidifying our hold on Pale. For myself, I will be leaving the city shortly. Rest assured, my mission has goals identical to yours. Now, one last thing,' she turned to Toc, 'I wish to hear the Claw's evaluation of the words that have been exchanged here.'

He stared in surprise. He'd assumed the role she had expected of him without even realizing it. He sat straight and glanced at Tattersail. She now looked nervous, drawing her hands beneath the table. He waited until their gazes locked and held before he turned to the Adjunct.

'In so far as she knows it, the sorceress speaks the truth,' he said. 'Her speculations were genuine, although concerning the dynamics of magic I'm at a loss. Perhaps High Mage Tayschrenn could comment on that.'

Lorn seemed vaguely disappointed with Toc's evaluation, but she nodded anyway and said, 'Accepted, then. High Mage?'

Tayschrenn released a slow breath. 'Accurate,' he said. 'Speculation is sound.'

Toc refilled his goblet. The first course was removed almost untouched, but as the second course arrived everyone turned their full attention to it and conversation ceased. Toc ate slowly, avoiding Tattersail's eyes, though he sensed them upon him time and again. He wondered at his own actions: deceiving the Adjunct to the Empress, the High Mage and the High Fist all in one shot struck him as rash, if not suicidal. And his reasons for doing so were not entirely rational, which made it all the more distressing.

The 2nd had a long, bloody history. More times than Toc could count someone had come through for someone else whatever the odds. And, more often than not, it had been the mage cadre. He'd been there on the plain outside Pale, and he'd watched with a thousand others the cadre being torn apart, hopelessly outmatched. That kind of waste didn't sit well with the 2nd. And, though he was a Claw, the faces that surrounded him, the faces that looked upon him in hope, despair, and – at times – fatal resignation, those faces had been mirrors of his own, and they defied the Claw at every turn. The years in the Claw where feeling and caring had been systematically assailed, those years failed to withstand the day-in, day-out reality that was the 2nd Army.